Guantanamo Bay... Who knows what lurks in the eerie depths? When you are offering cash for people, all sorts of unfortunates can be picked up and tossed in the Bin. Question - what keeps Musharraf on a spending spree when certainly he could not have the means? He admitted to receiving cash for people in his book. Let the sun shine on those who have been denied justice and you may be surprised. Informed opinion in Pakistan has it that many of the detainees were members of Tablighi jamaat a religious and nonviolent movement who encourages members to undertake missionary tours. They are apparently non-humans now. Easy to call them terrorists when they can not object. Caught in the act? Think again!

France still harbors a lot of anti-Semitism. It is easy to point fingers at the Arabs for being anti-Semitic, but it is countries like France and Germany that should be single out. They are not doing enough to fight this plague.

Sadly, the Dreyfus Affair reminded me of the Wen-Ho Lee case. It was quite ironic that it was the liberal bastions like the NYT that spearheaded the public crucifixion of Dr. Lee. This shows even almost 50 years after the McCarthy Era, how entrenched paranoia can be, especially when it is combined with racism.

Fortunately, Dr. Lee finally got his name cleared in a year and probably this shows this world did learn its lesson.

As regards to the Guantanamo detainees, firstly not all of them were captured in Afghanistan. Secondly the problem is the criteria used for being defined as an enemy combatant (which is an illegal category anyway). If you happened to be a non afghan and in Afghanistan when the war began, you stood a good chance of being detained!

Yes alter Ego it is surely something (power, control and action taken against the "liberty" of what they say we are: "free men") that hapens a lot nowadays and it happen in a lot of new and more elaborated forms, thats evolution and disgracefully human kind use it maybe more for the bad(Self dumb Interest) than for the good (progress and good sustainable economics) or else we wont be in todays so uncertain situation, with crisis and so much thiefery and egocentrism at a world scale.. .

L affaire dreyfus happened in France long ago but today there is not one journalist or media people (or maybe one or two hardcore) that publicly denounces corruption or default of goverment in that country, and why is that? ohh ask some french ones u'll see, the quantity of journalist and others that had been threaten or fired from their jobs is simply impressive!. so, the few who have the critical and intellectual level to inform others of the real situation (most necesary when its getting ugly) find them selfs agianst those totalitarian mecanims to repress them and the valuable information. My dear friends,in our days that happens in "developed-bankrupted" countrys as well as those who wanna better themselfs (developing ones), its a shame and one of the main reason of all of our disgraces. The power that comes from ambicious self interest is good enougth to restrain the goals of human kind. Aujourd hui la liberte, l'egalite et la fraternite il faut vraiment la chercher !!!

Anti-Semitism is always a convenient form of prejudice. It never ceases to amaze me how seemingly "left or liberal" folks (to use the American sense of the word) can suddenly become anti-semitic when it suits them. With the American reactionary right, it's just as anti-semitic, they're just more open about it.

I'm not talking about the stuff like Helen Thomas' no-filter thoughtless bigotry. I'm talking about people who should know better decrying some form of "Jewish literati" or "Moneyed folks" as keeping others down, while they themselves are literati and well-moneyed. L'Affaire Dreyfus was the same thing: a case where some people in an elite cachet didn't want anyone else to be elite, so used anti-semitism, and prevailing social thought, to excuse a vile act and allow bigotry to prevail. Whatever your political thought, there's no excuse for the permission of anti-semitism, racism or bigotry in order to support what you believe.

Please identify the standards you are using to make the comparison. Would that be in comparison to a civil court in Nashville, Tennessee? A criminal court in Brighton, East Sussex? The International Court of Justice of the War Crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia? The trials of the Genocide committed in Rwanda? Or is this merely an attempt to vilify the War against Terrorism?

“… Perhaps because the US military weren't actually present when they were 'captured'."

Why do you imply that the US military should be present when they were “captured”? Odd that you would suggest that. Are other parties ineligible to capture terrorists?

"The author draws an intriguing parallel between the Dreyfus affair and the Guantánamo detainees under President George Bush, held on suspicion of terrorist links"

I'm also intrigued to know the author's take on Guantanamo detainees under president Obama... can he find any parallels with the Dreyfus affair now? Btw, most of these detainees were captured in the field - not suspected, but red-handed terrorists.

Reading Hannah Arendt's "origins of totalitarianism" got me interested in the Dreyfus affiar, and one can never have too many excuses to mock the French.
In all seriousness though, the whole nasty business seems particularly applicable today, and I'm not just talking about Guantanamo.